Retribution
by RedHeadedPixieGrunger
Summary: Still reeling over their break up. Punk catches a one night stand leaving AJs hotel room. As he confronts her, Punk's left stunned when the truth finally emerges. Will he like what AJ has to say?
1. Chapter 1

**Ok this was supposed to be a one shot but hell, we'll see :)**

* * *

**Phil's POV**

I wish I could move. Do something. Anything. But I can't. I'm paralysed by it. The sight of you... your clothes barely covering your body. You gave it away. To... Fuck, I don't know who. And that shouldn't matter, because I should have ripped his throat out the second I laid eyes on him. But how did I even manage to do that? Fuck, I only came back to grab my jacket. Thought I'd be in and out, grabbing it from the side table in my room. Only it wasn't there. And can you believe the thought of running into you after so long, with things so different actually made me nervous? I almost didn't go back at all, thinking it could wait until I knew you weren't on my floor.

And then I heard you. And God, I wish I hadn't. Sounds like that, coming from you, keep me from sleeping every night whilst I try and convince myself that it's all over, all... that... it's done. It is. So yeah, it was really concern that made me go across the corridor, towards your room, real friendly concern that made me feel quite so furiously sick.

Yeah right, look at you. You could barely stand up and yet you look like you care less than I have to pretend I do. You pull the door back and fall heavily against the door-frame, letting your head loll to the side as your hair falls across your face.

"Where'd he go?"

"Not tell you he was leaving then?" I snipe.

But it seems to go completely over your head. You smile wryly. "Didn't tell me much really."

"Get a name?"

Lifting your hand, you sweep you fringe from your eyes. "What's it to you?"

I feel myself jolt. _What's it to me?_ Oh, if you knew... I've never felt sicker in my life and I'm really battling the urge to tear out of this hotel and rip him in half, whoever he is. I couldn't care I'm so wound up. He's just long jumped way over the-

Punk, **stop** it! She isn't mine anymore remember? That's why-

That's why she's doing this.

I ignore your words, instead throw you a disgusted look, feeling my pierced lip curl as I glance you up and down. "Look at the state of you..."

I want you to look back at me in the same way, have some sort of flare inside you I can still recognise as April. But you just giggle, nodding your head to agree with me.

"Yeah, it got a bit mad. But you know how it is... in the heat of the moment-"

I can see the fire in your eyes, existing to do little more than torture me, challenging me to come back at you with some smart remark like always. Jesus Christ, there's no other way to get through a day without you anymore. Because still, you are so close and yet you could never be further away. Everything I try so hard not to remember of you has never really left me and my God, we both know how damn hard I've tried to forget. Only now, you've truly gone and done it - and I can't believe you did. So I can't look at you, gaze settled deliberately somewhere else because I feel so sick.

I know you notice and I see the way you smile, victorious somehow. _You callous bitch._

You straighten up and lazily pad back into your room, leaving me jolting to keep down my nausea as my stomach lurches at the impact of your door slamming shut. And me? I'm just off to put my fist through a wall.

Well, actually, no. Hell, I'm angry enough to do it, but you know me... and that's exactly the problem. Why do it to yourself, April? I'll never believe you got an ounce of pleasure out of having _him_ paw at you. Honestly, could you have wanted him on top of you, with nothing to offer but clumsy groping hands? He could never have given you what you need, never have touched you in the ways you must be to make it all worth your while. And oh, I bet he thought it was Christmas, didn't he? Eager and willing... but still never enough.

But I know you too. Have you forgotten, or is that one fact the whole point? Was seeing the thunder on my face enough to make it all a little less laborious? Did revenge taste a little sweeter then, darlin'? Did it? Because I know that's what this is. It's revenge. Because we're not together anymore. Does it make you feel sick to to think I could be with another, but don't you know I just needed things to be normal?

Oh no, I realise bitterly, I'd love to know what you'd say about that; I can already hear you telling me that us, what we had, never _existed _in normality and that allows you the right to move on first. And you're right. I know you are. I was just never prepared for it. Did you know it'd kill me this much? Is this... one fumble... is this you really moving on? Or is this you hurting still, so determined to give me a slap in the face?

How could you do this to me?

* * *

**April's POV**

I let the sheet drop from around me as I leave you to stomp off back to your room and try and hide your rage. You are _such_ a child, Punk. You deserve to feel as sick as I have done these last few weeks, seeing you with her? What right have you to be over me, when-? And how could you insult everything we had together and choose her? Tell me, were you really that desperate to write me off as wrong? She's just a simpering, sickening woman and you... you made it all happen you know. I blame you because it **is** your fault. What kind of spineless bastard blames a woman for returning everything he wanted? I gave my everything to you whole heartedly and what? Suddenly _friends_ is the name of the game? Oh why did we ever bother?

I stand against the hotel room door, shivering with cold. And you know what? I could pretty much claw Whatever-That-Guy's-Name-Might-Have-Been's touch from my skin. But believe me, I don't do it to gratify the way you are down the corridor, licking your wounds, wondering why I'd ever want to give up what was yours to any other man. And the answer? You're not mine anymore and I'm not sure I was ever yours. I'm my own person now, alone in the misery of this world. And now, I'm out to make my own mistakes. Big ones. And then maybe, when I look back on my wreck of a life, the idea I was ever stupid enough to fall in love won't feel as catastrophic as it does right now.

This is my life, Phil and I'm determined to have no more regrets. So to see the agony in your face; you know, in that moment you were silently praying I could not tell; it makes it easier. You deserve to know the pain you've forced me to suffer through no fault of my own. All I ever did was love. So now I shan't dare. I'll live the way you did when we first met. Free and easy, without a care for anyone or anything in the world. I refuse to feel ashamed. Whatever-His-Name-Was really wasn't as bad as you're no doubt convincing yourself he was. I'd be perfectly happy to take him as you have taken her. To spite me, to forget the world's worth of better lovers...

But life has to move on, doesn't it? You should know... you gave mine a hard enough shove.

So I carefully dress in fresh clothes, a well meant smile on my lips, no breath of a lie as I brush through my hair. The bristles keep tickling at the back of my ear and as I tug the brush all the way down to the ends of my hair, I realise that my little diamond stud is missing from my lobe.

"Shit." I curse beneath my breath, dropping down onto my knees on the carpet. I press my ear against the fibres, peeking beneath the bed and around my case. I'm not losing one of those... my sister gave them to me from Tiffany's one year. I reach in, grappling to feel anything at all. I find a couple of old receipts that make me wince to look at the sub-totals, pennies; and then... something else. Soft and scrunched, I hold the material tight in my fist, trying to figure what it might be whilst I still have absolutely no hope of seeing it. So I pull it out, falling back on my knees in defeat as I realise what I hold.

It's your _Cro Mags_ t-shirt... in my suitcase... how have you not missed this? How did you lose it?

Oh. How else?

I bet you know it too, but don't have the nerve to even raise the words to claim back this, your favourite. I have to physically stop myself burying my face in the material to become intoxicated by your scent. _Oh for God's sake April, pull yourself together, will you?_ What choice do I have? I can't go on romanticising every detail of you can I? Because for you to know that's what I do... well, you're the one that gave up.

Bravely, I drag myself up from the floor and make that monumental decision. I could have just stuffed it back into the case, pretend I never saw it, never had the memories of all the times we've spent together in my bed begging to be thought of just once more to hurt me a little more. I have to be better than that, stronger or because of you, I'll never know myself again. I won't let you do that to me. So, fighting to keep my breathing regular and steady, I grow a little stronger for every heavy step down I take towards your room, the resolve hardening within me to meet this moment head on and have it gone, never to be thought of again.

I drop my gaze as you open the door, stroking across the folds of your t-shirt with my thumbs as I hold it in my hands. I draw in a deep breath, hoping I sound pretty much nonchalant as I carelessly hand it to you, already turning away.

"I found this-"

I catch you looking so reluctantly up at me out the corner of your eye as you begin to unfold it. "What is it?"

I don't answer you, feeling one of them bastard lumps rise in my throat that I wish so badly I could simply choke down. I just smile weakly turn back towards you, needing anything more than to look at you right now.

You go ahead and unfold it. "Fuck, I thought I'd lost this-"

"Yeah well, you haven't, have you?" I can't seem to help but snap, biting desperately down into my lip as I realise I've done it. Tears are burning in my eyes that I can't seem to blink back, but I'm damned if I'll let them fall. I'm stronger now, you hear me?

"Where did you find it? April?"

I compose myself and face you, somehow managing to mean the soft smile I send your way. I hunch my shoulders, telling myself and you it doesn't matter anymore.

"At the bottom of my case."

You look back at me like I just punched you in the chest. How can everything you wanted once now seem to scare you so much? I pity you and I never thought I could.

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"Well, wait...?"

"Lost an earring." I pull gently on my empty lobe. You don't even blink.

"Not found it?"

"Nope."

You just nod, and I know that it took all your strength and creativity just to ask that last question. What the Hell happened to you? You can't lay the blame at my door this time. I'm just here, never doing anything you didn't want me to do in the first place.

Silently, I turn to go back to my room. I did what I came to do. But I see you and I just have to ask.

"Why's it like this, Punk?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Yes you do." I insist, amazed at how calm I have remained. Maybe it's just not in me to be angry anymore. "Why have you made it so hard?"

And you choke slightly on your quiet, mocking laughter as you glare at me. "I'm sorry, did _I_ force you to go at it with that-" The anger that burns across your face tells me you're ready to brand the nameless guy with every name under the sun instead, but I'm not going to allow that, because you know what, you make me angry too!

I turn my head away, rolling my eyes; "You'd love to think it's all about you wouldn't you?" You glare at me more intensely than ever. I think you're starting to hate, because I'm not down on my knees, breaking for you. At least you've never lost your nerve I suppose, but my God, it grates. "Get over yourself, Phil." I scoff. "God knows, you got over us quick enough."

Oh Christ, I said that out loud, didn't I?

"I'm sorry, I-"

"No, you're not." you answer coldly.

"Look, I- I did it because I wanted to. The guy's nothing to do with you, like she's nothing to do with me yeah?"

"Whatever."

"Fine." I snipe, fed up with your cold childishness, even if I should probably be used to it by now. "But this is the way _you_ wanted it remember?"

And with that, I rush back up to my room, the soles of my bare feet stinging as the fibres of the carpet burn against them. I jump out of my skin at the force with which I slam my door. I guess I'm a little more angry than I can bear to realise. Can't you see I'm trying, so damn painstakingly hard to let go of everything you make like you've forgotten? Don't you see it's only you that stops me moving on?

If you must insist on playing this tedious role of my friend, then... how can I cling to the past? It means nothing now does it? The man I love so fiercely still... he doesn't exist because... because you refuse to remember he was ever within you. Fine. Then as of now Phil, I want you out of my life, and maybe then we can get on with playing this game without me having to always feel like some part of me is missing. I'd rather destroy the treacherous memories myself than suffer the knowledge they are forever lost. And believe me, I'm ready to do that. I need to be myself again. Myself alone. I need, just like you, to forget I was ever part of anything bigger than that, better and so damn consuming.

And all my memories of you Phil, they're hidden away in one gift box, a messy stack of one hundred and forty seven photographs precisely. A couple are likely to be ruined with tears by now. Oh God, you don't know how many times I've so lovingly gone through this box since you started sleeping with _her_. I'm pathetic, but then I'm the one that doesn't want to give up aren't I? How can I when I know how good it felt. I look at these photos, feeling your arms around me in the warmth of the sun, your kisses always on my feverish skin and I don't understand how you could make yourself forget darlin', or why you'd want to. Every one of these moments felt so good. Immortalised so they might last forever. But I don't want to be tortured anymore. I don't want to be so desperate to remember what you now say was never real.

So this time, I don't even lift the lid. I just take the box from my bag and hold it heavy in my hands. I drop down onto the balls of my feet again and go back to your room, knocking hsrd on the door. You open it, letting me make my way inside. With my back to you I can still feel how close you are and I turn my head with such a precise suspicion, you frighten me a little.

"You knew I'd feel like this didn't you? You _knew_ I'd feel this sick."

"What are you talking about?"

"**Don't** fuck me about!" you yell, with such a raw pain. "The idea of you, with... oh fuck, I could _kill_ him, I could-"

"You're jealous."

The word out, oh you hate me all the more for it, slamming your fist down hard against the wall. "You think I _want_ to be?"

"But you've... you've got no right." I whisper, stunned. But you just look back at me all the more maddened and I feel my voice shiver. "_I_ never gave up on you! I never said it was over!"

"Yeah well, it _is_, isn't it?" you hiss. But the venom dies away in the next second and you struggle with the words you so need to get out. "Was he... the first?"

"Yes."

"Right. And did you... feel like this when I-"

"-started fucking her?" I finish bluntly, my own agony roaring to the surface. "Worse."

But you shake your head, so stubbornly refusing to believe me. "You can't feel worse than this."

"Says who?" I demand hatefully. "This is one _day_ Phil. I've had _her_... with you on a loop in my head for months. It's like you're trying to kill me and I hope to God you feel something close right now because it's no more than you deserve."

"So how many more are there going to be April, eh? How many?"

"Why does it matter anymore? I'm nothing to do with you, am I?"

Maybe that's what hurt you the most. As I reach over to push my box over onto the side, you seize my arm, exerting a painful pressure on my wrist so I can't put it down. But you don't even notice you're hurting me. Maybe you don't care.

"C'mon then, friend to friend, how good was he?"

Your words make me forget the pain that coarses through my wrist. And I can't hold off the smirk that flickers to the side of my mouth. With my other hand, I carefully sweep my fringe away from my eyes and give you the most piercing look I can. "In comparison to _who,_ Phillip?" I question, already knowing your real question. "My own divine _ex_ boyfriend?"

You shove me away. But I regain my balance pretty easily. I'm not down Phillip. I won't give you the satisfaction darlin'.

"Christ knows how you ever thought this would work." I tell you scathingly. "I tried to tell before, you _know_ I did. Friends _never_ do what we've done- what **you** wanted!"

"It wasn't just me!"

"No, it wasn't. I know that. It's **you** that wants to forget. And me, I've never given up trying to give you what you want, Phil. But you _must_ know this is never going to fit!"

I know you do. I can still hear your words in my ears. "Friends? Saying it doesn't make it true." Only, you never did say it. You just left me. And you know, in all your pretences, I've never stopped. Only, you've never given me anything to hold on to have you? So, I have to know;

"How'd you get it straight in your head, Phil? C'mon tell me, how have you justified this to yourself? Sleeping with me one week, her the next? How do you make yourself forget that's what we've done?"

You gulp down half a breath, gripping the edge of the dresser so fiercely your knuckles have whitened like the whole thing could come apart in your hands. "I have to." you mumble, an edge in your voice that tells me how much you hate me. Why baby, why do you hate me? Because you know I've had another's touch in your place? Because now you know what you gave up? Why does it affect you so much, why do you stand with your whole body trembling, the muscles in your back twitching in vicious spasms you cannot control? We're apart now. We're done.

But now I know that against your will, you remember.

"What for? For the company? Come on Phil, I never got told what he said to you that day. You just upped and left me. Did he promise you more money, a longer title run, if only you were a good boy and ended everything going on between us? Everything you started?"

"Shut up..." you hiss warning, gripping the edge tighter still, shaking your head fiercely from side to side to block out my words. "Shut up!"

"I never wanted you! I told you, the first night, I told you I wanted to keep my job!"

"Well, so do I!" you yell in aggravation, slamming your hand down onto the surface, wishing so much more it was a fist.

"So why did I have to love you? Why did you make me? Because I did, but I loved you for my own! And I think you left me because you were afraid of losing everything you worked hard to get. He told you it would all be alright this way, didn't he?"

"It will." you gulp desperately, fighting to convince no-one but yourself. "It just... It just needed to stop. Now it has. It'll be alright."

"Fuckin' Hell, he's got you right where he wants you, hasn't he? How has it stopped, Phil? I should be able to sleep my way round this company, just like you did and you shouldn't want to bat an eyelid because you shouldn't care anymore. But you do, don't you? You really think I'll hold back just because you don't want to hear things about me when I've heard things about her for so long? I won't. So just you keep screwing around, friend, and I... I'll sleep with as many men as it takes until I find the one that's not ashamed to remember everything we've done, alright? I don't want you looking through me anymore. None of this is my fault. I'm moving on too."

You straighten your back, staring hard out the window as you laugh, cold and mocking before you glance icily back over your shoulder at me. "Course you are. Because nothing beats whoring about town does it, April?"

"You tell me." I hit back coolly. "I'm only following your lead. Pretending I need somebody. Anybody. Just like you. I mean, how else did we arrive at her?"

Your whole face darkens. Gotta say, I'm impressed. Well, more amused. Because really, you should be knocking me halfway across the room, you just know I'm going to love tearing strips out of the smug little whore. But you're not. And that tells me you don't really care.

"Leave her out of it." you growl.

"Out of what?" I press, feigning innocence. "There's nothing anymore is there? Still... smacks of desperation doesn't it. But I guess, she was there. Ready and willing, just as desperate as ever. If I didn't know better-"

"You don't."

"-I'd say you suited each other. But it's painful really. I mean, what, you going to build a picture of domestic bliss for people to approve of?"

You turn steadily, glaring at me with pure hate in your eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh I do. I know all too well. He's really pulling your strings isn't he?" I sigh gently and I know you feel patronised. Me, I just feel sad. "Mind, you do seem to have a habit of forcing things it turns out you don't really want..."

"It wasn't like that." you snap, glowering at me.

"I don't care." I bite back, jolting a little as I realise how true that is. I don't care. "You were supposed to keep it together, not give up. But hey, as long as you heal right, never mind the mess I was in! I never wanted it, you made me love you! I don't even know who you are anymore, but... you're not who I remember. You're some... cruel imitation I'm left with. Christ knows what I found in you to love so much."

It sounds as though you hardly know the words even left your mouth, a defeated whisper holding them. "I never knew either."

"You sounded genuine." I point out flatly. "You know, I really believed every word you said, the day it ended. You didn't have to let that happen. None of it ever needed to happen."

"No." you concede, shrugging.

"So why did it? I could have been on my knees wanting to keep you and you wouldn't have seen me. Do you remember, is that why you look through me, so you don't have to?"

You just blink and I can already tell how glassy your eyes are, blocking me out.

"I gave you your life back." you state simply, shrugging as if that's it and I should be eternally grateful.

"So what?" I push, feeling my own agony begin to fizz in my chest.

"So- So now it can all be alright! We... can go back to being what we were."

"Yeah? Acquaintances right? Because we were never really friends, were we Punk?"

You flinch. You forced this and yet it's you that can't stand it. It's you that tore it down, let me turn the world on its head to tell you that I love you.

"No." you manage. "We weren't..."

I tilt my head thoughtfully to the side, contentedly studying your face. "Close or-" I purse my lips. "-not?"

You don't say anything. You glare at me and then decide to become fixated with a spot on the floor. But I'm not going to give up give up. For all the pain you made me suffer for your facade of love, I deserve some answers, and to torment you a little in the process.

"C'mon Phil, let's think about it. How can we make this work. How friendly can we be, hugs and a peck on the cheek? Because I know what will happen. You'll be squirming so much inside, you'll miss and nearly, so nearly, kiss me like you used to. And you won't want to, you'll try not to, but you won't be able to stop yourself thinking about all the ways you _used_ to kiss me. And I know what you'll be doing for the rest of that night. You'll be stood in the corner, really watching just how close I am to the men you don't know, and never admitting to yourself why you feel so sick, what it is you _really_ want. And I'll only be able to give you the kind of look, the kind of smile friends give to each other. I'll have to look at you the way I look at Celeste. You really ready for that?"

A little too quickly, you scoff, your whole face crumpling in disgust. "Fuck... do you hear yourself?"

I just smile tightly. "I'd rather me than you. I've heard way too much of _you_. But then, you don't even notice I'm here to listen anymore. Where do you get off on punishing me? I did this the way _you_ wanted - I've done _everything_ you wanted. And what, you can just bury everything you're supposed to have felt because suddenly some fat sweaty bastard in a cheap suit tells you it isn't in your best interests?"

You're motionless as you look back at me. But I can tell you're antsy, you're shifting your weight really gradually, like you're trying to separate the ground so it can swallow you up. That doesn't happen though so you push against the side and almost leave the room. Just like that. If only I could get away that easy.

"Face it, Punk!" I call out blindly, not knowing what you'll do as you hear me. "None of this is really you. It's Paul. The long-awaited third party in what you used to call our relationship. And what right's he got to do this to me, eh? Why's he get to take you from me when I did all the fighting for us?"

Somehow, when I focus on you, I see you're mildly amused, licking fleetingly at your dry lips as you laugh. "You?"

"Me, yeah."

"That's rich."

"Oh Phil, don't go off on one. You wore me down into bed, nothing else. You talked me into going public. You're the one that's let it all fall apart. Not me. I'm just here, and I wouldn't feel any different if I didn't know you try and pretend it never happened. I don't want a man who's that gutless. How's he made you so weak?"

I know nothing could infuriate you more. You whirl round, eyes ablaze with the kind of fury to keep me alive. "I'm _not_ weak."

"It's not your own mind anymore, of course you are."

Your lips curve into a sneer. "You just can't handle it can you? I don't _want _you like that."

"No?"

"No." you hiss back stiffly. I bow my head gracefully, accepting this.

"Then I guess you better learn?" You frown in your confusion and I smile. "Wouldn't want you to miss now would we?"

You go completely rigid. You're stone as I come confidently towards you. You don't trust me, but that's OK - I was a fool to trust you too. I stand in front of you, almost able to taste the breath you won't breathe. I stretch up and press my lips to your cheek. You're quivering. You're _scared_.

"It's OK." I whisper, amidst a soft laugh. "I give up too."

I hear your half breath get lodged sharply in your throat. And the next thing I know your hand is tight around my wrist, jerking my whole arm. I turn steadily back on my heel, knowing I'll meet the utter confusion in your face.

"Never thought I would huh? Well, if this is you, then what I remember, it's _lies_ isn't it, Phil? And I'm free to fuck my way through the country because... well, there was never anyone to hurt. You don't know how. You just want me there for when you get bored of her, because you know I'll be just like you, I'll tell you to use me. But that's all. I'm so sick of loving you."

"You just want a reaction..." you hiss spitefully from the doorway as I move back, away from the bathroom. I splutter indignantly on my next breath.

"_You_ wanted to kill him! You can't have it both ways Phil! You either let me get on with it or-"

"He had no right to be in your room..."

"This is _my _life, it's you with no place there anymore! You remember, you got with her just to kid yourself you forget! How's that working, sleeping with her in the same bed that we-?"

You wince, fighting to breathe steadily as you force your eyes shut, whispering; "Shut _up_..."

"C'mon, what do you see when you're there, what are you _not _remembering?"

You scowl, eyes snapping open in the next second just to spite me, eyes ablaze with anger.

"Jesus Christ Phil, you're pathetic. I mean, I never really thought it could work out but... going back to this? It's pointless. You know we can never go back, you must know it. Because you can't ignore it can you? You want to, but you can't because, hey, it's alright for you to hook up with the first tart to pout at you but, me? What, I'm just supposed to stay, existing, for your gratification? You wouldn't do this to anyone else."

"You know it's different."

"How?" I demand shrilly, the anger beginning to pound. "You left me! And somehow, I've learnt to live with that. It's over. Fine. But I want my life back. It's not yours anymore. I just want to get on. And you... you can carry on this way."

"Yeah?" you snipe coldly. "And what about you?"

"What about me?" I challenge.

"Are you anyones' now?"

"I live this way for you. I said I'd do it just to know you! But I don't do I? When did you change so much? I never thought you'd pretend it never happened, I never thought you'd make it this hard!"

"What do you want me to do?"

"Don't let him take everything from us. You know how it was, you know he's wrong. But hey,as long as he doesn't stop your pocket money eh? God... why can't you just admit it was good, that's all I need but instead... you just pretend I don't exist anymore. Do you know how cruel that is? You don't speak to me unless you have to, and even then you don't look me in the eye! And yet, the second I try and do something for me-"

You flinch, your whole face like a wall of stone as you glower at me. "And did he?" you push. "_Do_ it for you?"

"Managed fine, thanks. But then... you knew that. That's what's got you like this. Come on, tell me it was friendly concern that's wound you up this much? Tell me that's why you want to tear his throat out..."

"I told you..." you growl in frustration, kicking at one of the cupboards to vent the emotion you can't comprehend. "I don't want to feel like this."

Oh God, you infuriate me so badly. I might as well be banging my head against a brick wall. I know you understand what I need to hear you say. I just need to know you remember. But you won't. Suddenly it's dirty and twisted, everything you so convinced me in the beginning that it could never be. And I hate you for that. I hate that you're no longer brave enough to acknowledge the man I love.

"Yeah?" I hiss back, seizing the gift box, weighed down with too many memories I know more than ever are pointless now. "Well I don't want to remember a pack of lies! Here!"

I thrust it at you, but it's not in your grasp as it leaves my hands. The box clatters to the floor, the lid dislodged and photos spilling out everywhere. I force my eyes tight shut, not needing to ever see another sun-kissed you, holding a smiling me in a way that somehow made me believe you'd never let go. How do you make me out to be such a fool, Phil?

Carefully, I focus on you, nothing but you. You're not moving, completely stunned as photos flutter down all around to the floor. You don't know what you're supposed to do, say, or think. Don't want to mess with the iron set up you've worked out in your head eh? God forbid you remember.

"What... What are all these?"

I hardly know anymore.

"You should burn them." I answer flatly. "You'll probably enjoy it."

Your lips fall in confusion and leaning against the back of one of the chairs around the table, you gingerly pick up just one photo. "Oh..."

"Yeah. Oh. I want to forget too. I don't want to remember someone who was never real. Just get rid of them."

You rise steadily, putting the photo down on the table. You nibble anxiously at your pierced lip, not saying a word as you look at me, and oh, I wish you wouldn't. You've always known the power you have over me, you've always known how to use it. And in that look, so hurt and confused, you're doing it right now.

"I hate you." I hiss sincerely. "I hate you so much."

Silent still, you nod gently, taking half a step forward. I stumble three back, backed into a corner.

"And I know you hate it, the idea I could want anyone after you! I know it hurts because I'm the one that's been living it for the last few months! So maybe I do mean to hurt you too, why shouldn't I? I just need you to remember that... it meant something, anything, and you just don't dare. But maybe used is as used does eh? Maybe it was only ever sex, maybe you never needed feeling! I envy you!"

There's no flicker of emotion on your face yet, but me, the pain's raw, it's spilling out and I blame you. Still, you come so gradually forward, soundless, just listening. You're probably not taking it in, but still, you have no choice but to listen, just like I don't have a choice when you take her to bed in the place of everything we had that felt so good. How's she doing with filling that void?

I should have known there was a threat coming. I stopped breathing the moment I felt the heat of your body on mine. I want out, but you only offer me one escape. You grab me so roughly, I would have yelled out in furious protest, if only your lips had not crushed down to mine, stealing my breath before I even knew what words I could scream out to keep you back...


	2. Chapter 2

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**Phil's** **POV**

What did you expect me to do April? This is the last thing I wanted to feel, but now we both know it don't we? I'll screw around to forget you, but you're never really gone, no matter how I try and kid myself. If you were, then you're right. I could take your friendly smiles and have no fear should I ever lean to kiss you. But, you're perhaps the only one that knows how tight and sickened the knot in my stomach is just trying to imagine myself doing such a thing. I've only ever kissed you one way and that itself is the only way I can stop you hating me as much as you profess to. I don't blame you for doing it, I'm with you in doing it, but, I wish you wouldn't.

That's why I can't stop myself grabbing you. I swear, I didn't know I'd end up doing what I do. To be honest, I wanted to throw you against the wall, yell at you to get the hell out of my head. You're not supposed to have any right anymore either, you don't belong, not when I was so certain I'd finally gotten everything straight in my head. I don't look through you because I don't want to see you. I look through you because I haven't got the nerve to face up to how much I miss you. I miss touching you the way you let that worthless creep touch you this afternoon. I hate you for letting him, I hate that I wasn't here in time to stop such a fuckin' atrocity happening at all. But how can I admit that? I haven't got the words and even if I did, I'd never be brave enough to use them. Is that what frustrates you the most? I can't do it, I just can't. If I did, I wouldn't belong anywhere. Not after everything.

But I've never been the one in control of my senses, my own emotions. Since the second we met, that was you. I resent you for it, because that makes it your fault I manage to present such weaknesses. I _should_ have just thrown you to the wall, shouldn't I? I think you could have taken that. But I couldn't. Because I swore I'd never hurt you, and even with the frustration to do it, I'd never forgive myself. But I can already hear what you'd say, in that cold way you can't seem to help but speak to me now. "You don't have to lay your hand on me to hurt me." Don't you know that makes me feel worse, pushes me further back? Because it seems whatever I say or do these days, I can never help but hurt you, and that in itself means I **deserved** what I witnessed earlier... in there with him. That realisation is more than I can bear.

Holding you there so roughly as you stand backed into the corner behind the door, what was I meant to do? You're the one in control now, even though I know that's probably the last thing you want. And it might be my fault, reading the fury and pain in your eyes for something I can take for my own, but this is you - I've never been able to help myself, have I?

So, I force my lips down to yours, needing your sweet taste to right everything again, like it used to do when I could take no more. But at least then the venom didn't come from you. I just want it to stop. I don't for a moment consider you'll revoke me, I need you too much to ever let it happen, but the relief as you cave back against the wall, grappling to reach up and bestow your feverish, raking touch, kissing me as fiercely as you have ever done...

I rake my hand through your hair, forcing your kiss harder upon mine with the pressure I exert. I want to wrench your whole body forward, feel you as close as you can possibly be. I have to feel your skin burning against mine, I want you to see it hasn't changed... that I still want you, more than any nameless pick-up ever could. And we both know you _are_ mine; you'll never mean the same to someone else. You'll never be able to do to another what you seem so effortlessly to do to me. Maybe I can't be played anymore, maybe I've had enough. Anything so long as you won't hate me anymore. I don't know any other way to make it better.

But maybe this is all you need, your scorching palms held tight around my jaw, leg instinctively raised that small distance to reach and wind me in against you. But I don't just want your kisses. I want your body, I want to burn away in this journey of rediscovery and I just... I want you to stop. You know where you belong. Stop fighting it so much with such staunch hatred - we both know it's lost in the end.

The first involuntary shiver to coarse through you makes me tingle. The first moan is like... it's like returning to an addiction. Abstainence was never worth it beside such a blissful sound and I need more, I want to give you it. I'm the only one that can.

I kiss and bite, a little too viciously maybe across the slope of your neck. You wince, but I remember what just the tiniest shocks of pain can do for you. I want you to have that. But your lips have always been so damn irresistable and I can't help but return so forcefully to them and for a moment or two, you're so eager to have me, your hands reaching. But they settle against my chest and you push me back, hardly an inch or two.

"No..." you murmur thickly. "_No..._"

I hear your protests well enough, but I won't let you return to them. I won't. I want you more than the cruelty of sense and confusion. It's worthless to us. So without a breath in between your words and my reaction, I case your jaw and pull you roughly forward to my insistent, desperate lips. I know you want this, and worse, I know we need it. So I won't hear you. I'll get by on the selfishness you say I must have felt that first night, to make you have me in the way I needed you to. I'll kiss you still, knowing any thought of protest is lost in your next throaty gasp.

You arch up, out of the corner and I have to move back. But I don't let go, holding you fiercely for every moment I know you haven't screamed out in a blaze of regret and bastard level-headedness for me to let you go. Moments ago, it was what you wanted. But I won't allow it and it no longer seems to faze you. I can feel your heart hammering against me, and I understand what an incomprehensible mess your thoughts must seem right now. So you're letting them go, lost in nothing but this haze of lust. You're desperate to forget because I won't remember. I've always remembered, always. I'm just too much of a... a man to admit it. I defy you to forget me now.

Your whole body seems to rest a little heavy against mine but I understand and pull you round the edge of the door, never surrendering your breath or your dizzying kisses as I force you around the room. You kind of stumble, but still our lips never part as you lead the way. We seem to enjoy the way each must torment the other with the effort of the furniture. But you know me, the challenge is there to be conquered. We claw desperately at one another's clothes, you already raking angry red groves all over my chest and arms in your readiness. We move up, in a tangle of limbs and furious, unforgiving lust, each of us shedding clothes all over the floor.

Does it hurt a little less yet? Can you feel a little more? I swear, April, I'm never going to have you feel so negatively about me. You might only be mine in confusion, me left with no option but to take you in my sheer frustration, but still, you're mine. And I won't give you up until you know that, yes, it's all gone wrong, and no, I can't live this way either. I can't get by on so little from you. And I _can't_ let anyone else have you.

We stagger and weave, falling across the width of the bed. Your nails cut sharply into my shoulders as you drop, but I'll take that too. Your near-nakedness, your apparant vulnerability, isn't enough. I want all of you, I undress you quickly with needy hands. Do you really know how beautiful you are? Can't you see how wasted you'd be on any other man but me? Where did _he_ touch? Was it the same way? How did he make it enough for you to give him everything that was mine?

Possessed to some level, I cover your body with the warmth of my own, moving over you, further and further down, kissing and biting every beautiful inch I see, claiming you. And I know you want it, I know. Because I can feel the tension in your whole body, the way you jolt and quiver, writhing against the bed, moaning those gentle fuck-me moans. Any words you could say now definitely wouldn't be ones to refuse me. You keep twitching all through your luscious legs, and you can't help but shift to gently part them, inviting everything you need, everything you'll never stop me giving. Do you still hate me, even as I kiss your sweet, exposed heat, lapping up the taste that rushes from you?

Do you remember me?

I move up over you again, and I stare deep into your eyes, glassy with lust, with surrender. And I can't help but wonder if you see me either. I can be angry at you too, you know. You gave up what was mine. You wanted all those memories erased. I've never said it was good, April, because I never needed to. Together, we always knew. And I may have made things different now, but the facts of the past don't change do they? You are my colleague. That's why I thought we had to live this way. But **you** are my lover. You know everything I was never brave enough to reveal to another living soul. You love me, you tease me. And today, for all the hurt this mess has caused, you frustrate and hate me. But still you are mine.

So I don't want your words, your reasoning or your protests. I tease you with the tip of my length, barely able to contain myself. Having not felt you for so long I can just about stop the urge to just push in and go ahead and make a vicous, selfish kind of love to you, needing you to realise nothing, not even your supposed hatred can stop me taking you like I did that first night, and making you mine. You'll never be anyone else's. Your weakness, your willingness proves it. I need this to last as long as I can. I know you will never let me have like this again. I push myself into you only by the tiniest amount. You whimper and I know you don't want me to pull away now. I move my hips forward, slipping in just a little more, stretching you to accommodate myself. _Fuck April. You're still as tight as I remember. _I stop moving and begin to rub your most sensitive spot with my thumb. My other hand slides up your body to grasp a breast firmly. Without moving my length, I play with you, rolling my fingers and tugging lightly on your nipple and aching spot.

As your orgasm mounts, I still didn't move. You try to wiggle closer but you know I'm not going to relent. Teasing you until you can't take anymore. Your moans get louder and I know you are close. I began to pick up the pace with my fingers and slide forward again, still not giving you all of me but letting you know that good things come to those who wait. Your back arches and hands grip the sheets as you feel the start of your orgasm building and you feel your wet heat clench over my throbbing member. You are starting to cum, legs quivering, and that's when I push the rest of my length deep inside of you. Still you moan and tremble, but in some small way I resent the release I give you because now I know, I really know I'm not the only one that has. I could ignore your past forever. But this... this is our present and... hours ago, you willingly gave yourself to someone that'll never want you this way. He'll never make you feel like this. And you can't tell me you don't want it. Because I can feel how much you need it, so close to the height of oblivion. You know no-one else can give that to you the way you want it. No-one.

Your body explodes and even when I press my lips against yours, it does nothing to stifle your cries of pleasure as your muscles inside clench tightly and you come hard. I know your orgasm has left you shaking and weak but I still don't move away from you. I begin to move inside you, which seems to torment your oversensitive heat. You gasp, not knowing if you can take this pleasure that is borderline painful. I don't stop, I can't as I pick up my pace, striving to meet my own release now as you cry out again, tears forming in your eyes from the intensity of my thrusts. I need you.

You begin to shake again and before you know what your body is doing you are lost in another blinding orgasm, groaning loudly against my chest, you feel me pump hard and deep inside you a few more times before my hands grip your tiny waist tightly and I groan. You are at the height of pleasure when you feel my hot release spurt deep inside you over and over again. I moan with my face pressed into your cheek, my laboured breath against your ear. I push into you a few more times before collapsing, stroking my hands up and down your sides

Tell me you hate me now.


	3. Chapter 3

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**April's POV**

Now it's me that doesn't know what I'm supposed to do or say or think. I'm just here like stone, hardly knowing how it got like this. But you do, don't you? So you tell me, Phil, how _did _it get like this? Just... how is it even logical in your head? You're the one that's turned the tables on me again and again, how am I ever supposed to know where I am with you? You say you want your career and the next, I'm thrown into the corner, forced to taste your fury and your jealousy in the most fierce, consuming kisses I've ever known come from your lying lips.

I told you "No!" and do you even know why? Do you care? Oh, you wouldn't. If you did, you wouldn't be lying there, inches from me, sleeping soundly, sated now. I cannot relax beside you. I refuse to lie here, pretending this makes it all OK. I am too ashamed and confused to even entertain the idea of it. Carefully, I peel back the duvet, drawing my knees up to my chest and swinging my feet away from the bed and down to the floor. I'm rigid as I go, terrified I'll wake you. I'm not ready to be around you yet – I never wanted to be in the first place, why didn't you get that?

I creep cautiously across the rough carpet, jumping at the way the floor must creak so loudly as I reach to open the bathroom door, terrified you will stir. But a quick, sickened glance back towards the rumpled bed, and I see you haven't moved. How can you sleep so easy when you were the one to refuse me every such moment as this when I might have wanted them?

I pick up your t-shirt and put it on over my naked body, shuddering a little with the cold that bites at my skin, with repulsion. I pull the bottom of it down unbearably tight, but bear it I will, hiding away from all these intrusions, from you.

I have the resolve, as ever, to run, to escape. I slide around the door, as quietly as I can. I stand facing the mirror, looking at my reflection and beyond, my escape, I finally allow myself a much needed breath. After all, only a few brave steps remain between me and... and my sanity, if I could just get out of here. Gingerly, I run the cold tap slightly, splashing my face, willing myself on. I don't even bother drying it. I softly open the door. The sight infront, has me frozen. Our clothes still strewn all over the floor.

Crazed, I hurry, snatching up every garment into clawed hands. I can barely hold them, they feel so... tainted. A regretful lump swells in my throat, almost managing to make me gag. I move back towards the bathroom, listening out for you with a tight feeling of nausea in my stomach. I try not to look up towards the bed – I don't want to see you there. But I can hardly help but look as I begin to dress myself. I'd give anything to be running in the other direction right now.

But there is no sound, no movement to fear. So all that is left is fear itself. I sink down heavily on the chair by the window. My energy is gone and I loll against the back of it, left to do nothing but torture myself with the thoughts that just won't stop going round. Why'd you ever have to make it so complicated, hurt me so much? I don't just hate you anymore – I hate myself too, I hate how I could have been so damn weak. But I refuse to be weak enough to cry.

But to surrender the ability, the burden of thinking too. It's all I want to run, to not have to think or feel or be certain – I'd leave that all to you, let you torture yourself as I have done since you took _her_ to your bed in my place. Only now I know she's welcome to it. This... it's a horrible place. Because when you finally drag yourself from that bed, forced to acknowledge everything you've made me a part of, you'll blame me. Never mind that you've given me enough reason to feel hurt and angry towards you until the day I die.

Maybe you're right to though? After all, I was the one stupid to give in. I found the courage to tell you "No!" even as your mouth mashed against mine, determined to take back everything you once considered your own. But you wouldn't hear me and I... I let you carry on, I kissed you back. What is this sick power you have over me, Phil? Must you only use it to be so cruel? You took what you wanted, and just like last time, I hardly know who or what I've been left with. Why do I never learn? Your chosen solutions will never cause anything but more problems, more pain. And I thought you wanted the easy life. Me, I just want to know I could go without making the same, stupid mistakes again. Don't you know I've had enough?

You'll never hear me say those words, will you? Dismissing my certainty, my courage, you'll still intoxicate me as ever. Because you think you know, you think you can _dictate_ how I feel. But I can't go on loving you with these same hateful breaths. I cannot spare both emotions. Not for you. Besides, both together make no sense, I have no use.

My neck still twinges and throbs with the dull agony of where you let your frustrations mark my flesh. You tell me how I am meant to explain such angry, _obvious_ marks away to everyone, Phil? How can I make another such episode that you have forced upon me, for nothing other than your own selfishness and fury, evaporate into nothing for you might look at me occassionally like you don't despise me or blame for everything that's gone so disastrously wrong in your miserable life?

There are too many unanswerable questions and the fear tightens my chest unbearably, and I know it will only be worse when I have to face you – face up to everything. I don't think I'm brave enough to go through that again. I tried to do that for you the first time, remember? But it wasn't enough. I don't think I'll bother this time. I mean, how could you? I told you I wanted to get on with the little that remains of my normal life and you prayed mercilessly on my weaknesses, perhaps doing nothing at all as you manage to do so much.

I pick childishly at the varnish on the armrest of the chair, feeling so lonely and uncertain. What right have you got to do this to me, Phillip? You were supposed to know what you wanted and you made it clear that it wasn't me.

I'm lost to that misery, minutes feeling like hours. But still I sense you at the very first second. I hear the bed creak, I hear the hesitant groan. I feel sick but for a moment, I can't help but wonder if you feel similarly to me. Are you about to try and make a run for it, pretend that everything can be nice and normal again, if only you can make it back to _her_ quick enough, to cover her in your liar's kisses. But you'll sit up and you'll see I sit here, still here. Do you think that's why I do it? To keep you back, to have you for my own? Nothing could be further from the truth now Punk.

I'd leap up and disappear myself if I could, but I'm too horrorstruck to move. This is it. The moment I have no choice but to face up to.

I feel you move, I feel your eyes settle on my back. They burn, as if I really am being examined, like something alien. But I do my best to ignore you, biting into my lip as you get closer. And then, you're behind me. I could move. I should. After all, you're too close for me to bear now. But that doesn't appear to be what you want. Without a sound, you settle yourself knelt down beside me. I can hardly believe your nerve, and can't stop myself whirring round to glare at you. But there's no flicker of emotion on your face. Your eyes are dim. You let your head rest lazily at a slight tilt against the chair and fleetingly, you smile, hardly daring to breathe a word.

"Hey..." you murmur, sounding like you're the one that's been sat here for God knows how long torturing yourself with regret and wrong-doing. But no, not you. Casual as anything, you've pulled your jeans back on from the floor and so brazenly, you are without a shirt, your bare chest still red from my intense fingers. Like it's as easy as that.

I bite hard into my lip and look away, making no effort to speak in reply as I fight to swallow down that painful lump that swells a little more now.

Silence lasts painfully. But then, oh you fool, you have to go and break it, stumbling over words you probably don't even mean to say. Why'd you have to bother at all, with anything? Why can't you learn to leave well alone?

"You look..."

I glare at you again, scowling as I snap; "I _know_ what I look like."

You blink, a little perplexed it seems. "Cold. You look _cold_."

I bristle, instinctively folding my arms across my chest.

I try my best not to look at you whilst not being able to avoid it. Oh, what is it you do to me, why do you have to do it? That lump swells still and I have to bite viciously into my lip to stop any threat of emotion escaping me. I can't have that in front of you. What we've done is plenty enough.

"So... is this what's going to happen everytime you find out I've slept with someone else?" I whisper thickly.

You look down awkwardly into your lap, and you don't say a word. Maybe you know it now eh? That your stupidly reckless actions never bring a solution. But how selfish it is of you to leave that task to me. How am I supposed to know any better?

I sigh heavily. "Why couldn't you just leave it all alone?"

You sound astounded. "_What?_"

"Well, why's it always you turning my life upside down? Why did you... I said no, Phil! I told you I didn't want this and look, here we are, in another glorious mess."

"What-" you question with a disgusted scathingness. "And that's _my_ fault?"

"I don't see anyone else here."

"You really are unbelievable, you know that? If you hadn't-"

"What?" I rage. "If I hadn't done _what_? All I've ever done is what you _wanted_. But always, Phil, it's never good enough. Why can you not just mean what you say? It's supposed to be over, done. You have no right to feel whatever it is you think you do. _None._ I said "No!" I don't even know what the hell you thought you were doing!"

"Well... at least we cleared that one up?"

"Yeah." I agree bitterly. "Jesus Christ, what's this all about? Because this... it feels just like the first time. I feel dirty and ashamed and I blame you. You're so damn selfish it's frightening."

Pointedly, I tilt my head, the curtain of my hair falling away and revealing the angry marks all across my neck. You flinch then, unable to look me in the eye.

"You tell me darlin', seeing as you have an answer for everything, what am I supposed to say to Amy? Or are you going to tell her?"

Still you say nothing, biting into your lip.

"You made your choice. You can't expect me just to be here."

"I wasn't." you confess awkwardly. "I'd thought you'd have, I don't know, _gone_ somewhere."

I hunch my shoulders; "I would have done, but I-" I gesture to my attire.

You laugh coldly to yourself. "You weren't joking, then."

"Why would I _joke? _It's a mess. You said you wanted the company, the glory-"

"Yeah, and I do but-"

"What? Friends isn't working? Well halle-fucking-juhah, Phil - no, it isn't. But maybe I want you to suffer too? Because friends don't ever do what we've just done. The first time was bravery, this... is stupidity."

"Is it?"

"C'mon, what do you think I'm going do? Lie back for you everytime life gets tough? Oh yeah, we'd really be able to explain that one away to everyone wouldn't we, to your _girlfriend_? You haven't even thought about her have you? You just let yourself get wound up by everything you can't control and... do you have any idea how I feel right now?"

"I got the gist." you answer coldly, looking away.

"No you didn't." I assure you softly, hating how I can feel pangs of sympathy in the centre of my tight chest. "I feel cheap, Phil and I never thought I would with you, not ever. But I do. I feel used like you did, the first night we-"

"You don't need to feel like that."

"Why not? My sheets were barely cold, and here's me, spreading myself all too thin already just for the sake of giving into you. You left me and that means I should be entitled to stop feeling like this too. But I haven't and I don't understand why not. God knows, you hurt me enough."

You move to protest, but I shake my head, smiling weakly to assure you there is no need.

"But at least you achieved one thing with all this mess? I know what it did to you that night. And I'd be sorry if I didn't resent you so much for making me feel it too. It's no use."

You blow out a defeated breath from between your dry lips. There's a heavy pause I know conceals a question you'll never be able to stop yourself asking.

"Did you really want him?"

I sigh gently. You just won't be able to let this go will you? The heat of guilt coarses through my body and I hate that too. I shouldn't have to feel this way and yet, because of you, I can feel no other.

"No." I confess heavily after a loaded silence. "No, I didn't want him."

"Then why?"

I laugh bitterly. "What do you mean "why"? If I don't- well, I'm just gonna be here, growing into some pathetic old woman, still going through that stupid stack of photos, trying to bring back those months when everything was OK. Nothing else ever was, but they were enough to make me love you. And I don't want to. Not anymore."

"You can't just make it disappear." you whisper reluctantly. I see a lump press against your throat. "Believe me, it really doesn't work."

"So what do you want me to do about it?"

"I don't know. But I... I really don't think I can live like this anymore."

"This was your choice." I point out coldly. "You have no other option."

"Then give me one. Please April-"

But my back stiffens. "Why should I? Why _would_ I?"

"Because you're here too, and you hate this..."

"No." I shiver. "I hate _you_ for this."

I watch you shudder shamefully, wringing your hands again as you gulp down all resistance to the word you can't help but speak.

"I've made a mistake."

"Yeah-" I scoff knowingly. "-and you'll keep making them, but I don't want to be any part of it."

"But you are." you answer tiredly, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"No! This was all about you and your stupid jealousy! The way you touched me-"

Your whole face is suddenly overshadowed by such confusion. "What do you mean "the way"? I've never... it's never been any-"

"It was _brutal_." I hiss, feeling the shuddering of a sob press painfully against my throat. "It wasn't even about _us_. It was all you and you... you just didn't care. And why? Because of what I've done? Do you really hate it that much?"

"You know I do. I know I shouldn't but I do."

"So you... you take it out on me like _that?_ It wasn't even sex. It's just you... kidding yourself you still belong. It isn't with me Phil, not after everything."

"You don't believe that."

"I told you "No"!" I repeat furiously.

"And I heard you. And alright yeah, I was being selfish but if you cared all that much, you could have stopped it. And you didn't. It's me that wants you, April and you know that."

"You only want it because it's gone."

"No. I want it because it's the only thing that belongs to me. _You're_ the only person I'm part of. And I've tried to make that go away, but it won't!"

"Try harder!" I demand, battling back that treacherous swell of emotion. "You can't say all this now because you can't mean any of it, do you understand me? You have Amy now-"

"But I don't want her!" you snap back in that same frustration. Then you reel, realising what it i you've said and your voice dies away in your throat into a terrified whisper as you raise your gaze to my face again and murmur; "I never have..."

And to see that selfish pain in your eyes, mine explodes, those building tears sliding from my eyes. I'd give anything so you wouldn't see me so weak, but it's all I can do to tilt my head back against the wall, staring at the blurring ceiling as I grapple for some sense.

"Please don't say all this now."

"Why not, it isn't going to go away is it?"

"No? Tell me you'd have found the nerve to say all this if you hadn't come back when you did, heard what you did? You wouldn't have spoken to me, you certainly wouldn't have touched me and... we could have just gone on..."

"Ignoring everything you can't." you say simply.

"Me?" I cough indignantly.

"It's you with all the photos..."

"Yeah well, I'm not like you, am I?" I snap hotly. "I don't find it all that easy to forget."

"Why not? You obviously don't want to remember."

"Because it's not the same anymore! You threw me away, Phil. You're not the person I knew. I miss whoever that was. And it hurts trying to find him everytime I look at you. I haven't changed. I've just had to watch you with her and... and now I feel just as cheap. Because I can't say the right thing, and you wouldn't know what that was even if I thought I could. We can't make this seem right, because it isn't! _This _is your mistake."

"No."

"How can you say that? You'll never explain it away and I think we've both discovered you're not brave enough to hold on. And even if we kidded ourselves you could, all it'd ever take was another look from Paul and we'd be right back here. You can't have it all, don't you understand that?"

"Yeah." you breathe sadly.

"And just because Paul... just because he isn't the man he said he was, it doesn't mean you can just fall back on me. I don't want to be used like that. Not just because you know how I feel about you. That's too cruel and I beg you not to do it to me."

"I never meant for it all to go so wrong."

"How can something that was never right go wrong, Phil?"

I see your lip quiver for a second, but you bite at it. "That isn't what you think. I know it isn't."

I shake my head, cruelly stating; "You gave up knowing what I think the second you started sleeping with her. Why is it one rule for you and another for me? I was the one that wanted to keep fighting for what we had, everything you made me feel, but this? All this is is you, wanting to have me so no-one else can. You don't feel anything - it's nothing above sex... the power of it-"

"No!"

I smile weakly, not believing you for a moment. "I would have let you have that, Phil, I would. But I fell in love with you and now... now I hate you for it because I'm so scared it'll never happen again. You're always going be there... like this, damage limitation! What do you think, that if you wear me down into bed after everytime I find the nerve to... go with someone else that somehow, on some twisted level, I'm still yours? Because I'm not! Everything about you now is too fake to love. Why did you ever have to say those words if you knew Paul was around to stop you meaning them, why? That first night, you knew he was coming back and whatever you tell yourself, deep inside you knew he wouldn't have let us happen."

"It didn't matter then!"

"No, because you'd gotten what you wanted, just like this afternoon - really _driven_ your point home! C'mon tell me, why was it suddenly so different that he was there when we were together?"

You look so guilty. Why don't you look at me? It can't be my fault this time. But oh, I have my own suspicions. I know what it was you wanted from the friend you imagined. And I know the one vital thing I strived to give you so much of that he simply hasn't.

"He told you, you were like a son to him. He was so proud of you becoming the man he knew you were destined to be? If only you weren't... what? Sleeping with me? So what are you going to tell him then Phil, about today? About what we've done?"

"Nothing." you mumble awkwardly.

I scoff, incensed. "I could have guessed that much. I knew it'd all be my fault. I knew it."

"I never said it was your fault."

"It's what you think." I sneer instantly as more bastard tears make their tracks down my face. "It's _my_ fault you can't get over it, it's my fault you can't make her enough, because I'm here, flaunting sexuality, giving it away, to spite you, yeah? It's all my fault."

"I can't help the way I feel-"

"You don't feel... you demand. And it's never going to be worth me giving in to you. It's just dirty and cheap and... I don't want to have to feel that way!"

"You never used to."

"Yeah well, I was supposed to mean something back then eh, Phil?"

"Why won't you _listen_?" you cry out in frustration. "Nothing's changed!"

"How can it not? You _made _it. It didn't matter what I felt, so long as there might have been the smallest chance he was going to help you out. I was just supposed to fade away wasn't I? Amy was going to fill that gap for you and you were just going to be a nice normal guy. Only nothing about you these days is nice and if you think any of it is normal, then my God, you're kidding yourself."

"Course I am." you spit coldly back, but darlin', I heard the shiver in your voice. And this time it weren't venom, it was misery. "I just... I never thought it wouldn't work."

You look so damn guilty in that confession, I could feel sorry for you. I could. I don't.

"But it hasn't, has it? And just like always, you've had it both ways. So something _has_ to change Phil, don't you get that? Because you're right; we can't live like this anymore."

You sigh heavily, pressing the flat of your hand to the arm rest. The chair creak as you push yourself up and I flinch and scoot protectively up against the back of it, terrified of your touch.

You don't say a word though and I'm reduced to watching you. You crouch back down upon the hotel room floor, carefully gathering most of the photos together in your hands. They shake a little as you stand again. You turn and your next ever apprehensive breath is caught tight in your chest.

I get up too, hardly caring what kind of state I'm in, how. I'm ready to get up and run as far and as fast as I have to. I don't want to face the agony of the moment I know is coming now. God knows, I never expected to go through it with you in such miserable circumstances.

But I think you read the terror in my eyes, smile so weak, your once vibrant eyes so dim as you come back towards me

"It's alright." you insist softly, nodding. "You don't have to- Go if you want. I just... I want to see them. I want to remember the stuff you do."

I swallow down a miserable lump in my throat, tears brimming as I look so sadly back at you. "I knew you'd forget."

But you shake your head, ever so lightly, as if you wish the confession did not exist to be told. "Not forgotten. Just... tried too hard not to remember. But I do. I remember everything."

My lip trembles as I try and find any words to answer you. "Well good for you. Can we just sling them now?"

"What, you mean like you with my t-shirt?"

"I just... found it."

"I know." you reply calmly. "But you had to remember didn't you? How it got there, why- And you know what I've realised? Both of us hiding away from this? It's no good. Whatever we end up deciding, we have to face this together."

"Like we faced Paul together you mean? Like we held _on_ together?"

The venom and the agony in my words cuts at you and you blink furiously through the tears you refuse to have fall. You look away and you suffer every blow without a shudder of response. You just take in my words and when they die away, you look back, through me again, and say;

"I'm here now aren't I?"

"Are you?"

You come back over and I'm rigid, praying you'll just pass. You don't. Biting into the cushion of your lip, you stand against, holding your weight back awkwardly so touch is impossible. But still, I can hardly breathe.

"I _just_ want to see them."


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you all for reading and reviewing, favouriting and following :)**

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**Phil's POV**

You can't even look at me as I settle back against your side as you sit back down into the uncomfortable looking chair. And April, you don't know how much I wish I didn't need this, but I do. I have tried to forget, I've tried so goddamn hard. But I haven't managed it have I? If I had, nothing about you or what you do could possibly affect me as severely as it does. And you know what, if I can't make myself forget, then all I can do is remember. I want to know what it is that seems to torture me so much. You've become so different to the April I called mine; it's a defence thing I know, a way to give yourself a chance to heal for all the time I hurt you but... you're the one that's hidden all these memories away and yeah, you're the one that's clung on. So even as you tell me you hate me, I know, that can only be because these... so many moments immortalised and then hidden so shamefully away... they meant so much to you.

You're curled into the chair, somehow hoping it might swallow you through as you bite into the pad of your thumb, trying to pretend I'm not there beside you, that you're not going to turn around and watch me. I know you will, if only to torture yourself. Unshed tears sparkle in your tired eyes as you shift round, taking up the more comfortable position of straightening your legs. You spread your hands in your lap and I notice you're at least half looking at me, even if you'd rather pretend you weren't.

I look down, my hands shaking a little as I move slowly through the photos. Fuck, you look so impossibly beautiful. Sunkissed and... carefree, if I dare be allowed to believe that. You were so scared, of how it would be when we told everyone. I never even thought about it. In retrospect, I guess that was stupid of me, but I was so immersed in you...

"What?" you question bluntly. I jolt, only then realising the laugh that was instinctive upon reaching this image really did leave my mouth.

"Nothing. I just... I remember taking this-"

Carefully, I hand the photograph over to you. Why do you have to look at me like that, April? Why do you have to be so damn suspicious? It hardly settles me as you smile, because I can tell in your eyes that you don't mean to.

"My God, it was so cold in that water..."

"You fell over three seconds later. I still don't know how you managed that."

"I just lost my balance."

"Yeah. That's what you said back then too, you could never lie to me."

"That's crap and you know it."

"Yeah? Do you remember the _nights_ April?"

"Walking." you confess after a few thoughtful seconds silence, leaning back against the chair. "I remember walking. Never really knew where."

"Me neither. But that was beside the point wasn't it?"

You tilt your head to the side, looking quizzically back at me. "Why do you talk like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like it matters. It's in the past now and I think we both know it's better best forgotten."

Oh sweetheart, I don't miss the way you pull again so self consciously at the bottom of my t-shirt you're wearing. Hiding your torturous nakedness. C'mon, what do you think I'm going to do? I mean... the chair? Give me a little credit will you-

"So why don't you just forget, huh? Why isn't it as easy as we need it to be?"

"Because you can't get over yourself."

I laugh gently, clawing back my lip as I dip my gaze, shaking my head. "Worse. I can't- I can't get over you."

"Well try." you snap, glowering at me, even if there is a little less venom now. Your determination to hate me so implicitly... it's waivering. "Because I know now... there was nothing in what we had. Nothing but a challenge and the promise of easy sex. You want something that empty, then use Amy... not me."

"It's a bit late for that, isn't it?"

You laugh in cold astonishment. "Of course it is. You made me feel things I should never have- but I do, you know that? I hardly know why anymore and I wish to God it would just fuck off and leave me alone, but... you're still here. I look at you sometimes and I... I kid myself that you could be the one in all these photos, but you're not, are you? You're someone completely different and yet, you haven't changed all that much. Still can't handle it when things get heavy, still running away and trying to stop me being anything besides what you want. But you don't know what that _is _anymore, Phil."

"I don't want _this_." I tell you certainly, without a moment's hesitation.

"So why did it _happen_?" you demand, your eyes so fiery and defensive.

"**No**! You're not _listening_. I'm not sorry. And the way I see things isn't wrong. There's been too much of that and you know it. Paul had his pop and it's gotten me nowhere."

"So what? We pick up again, make things even more of a mess?"

"I thought you said you were going to fight?"

"I would have done!" you shriek, those tears beginning to spill over in heartbroken frustration as you whack your head forcefully back against the back of the chair. "But you gave _up_!"

"You think I don't regret that? But I saw what it did to everyone around us, Paul..."

"**Don't**" A sob breaks free from your raw throat and you reach to rip the stack from my hands. "Don't you _dare_ make this about them. You said it was _us,_ no-one else. Nothing else was supposed to matter - you said it would be alright!"

"But it isn't, is it? You know that. This is never going to work for us, not like this. You don't want to live this way anymore than I do."

"Oh, what are you talking about? You've had it easy, Amy will have sorted it all for you, won't she?"

I just keep looking at you, refusing to break the eye contact I can tell you detest, looking back at me so furiously as those tears build still.

"I am sorry, you know. But now you know I hate it too. I don't want her and I definitely don't want you to have someone else-"

"I won't be controlled like that. I told you, you have no _right."_

"I don't want to control you, for fucks sake! You **know** how I feel about you!"

"Do I?" you question weakly, voice swayed with the threat of another sob. "So what's this... pretence you're feeling then Phil eh? How long is it going to last this time? What good is it to me?"

"Not much." I confess reluctantly. "But it isn't shifting, so don't tell me it was only ever about sex because I know it meant something and I know I was an idiot to let it go and I swear I can make it better than some wasted stack of pictures."

"Yeah? How are you planning to do that? Because you happen to be fucking your ex, turned friend, turned girlfriend again- it doesn't exactly inspire me to trust you, believe in you, so why the hell should I?"

"Because... sitting there... frightened ever to feel anything? We can make it good... better. This isn't the way you want to live and you've done it yeah? I never wanted to face up to the mess this is, but I know how I feel. I'm not trying to just dictate to you, I know you'd never have that, but... you hate the idea of Amy and I... I hate the idea of anyone with you? And I'm not doing that just to complicate everything. You know I tried to force it back, pretend it doesn't matter. But it does. **I** want to be with you. I'm never going to belong anywhere else."

"I _don't_ want to be second best."

"You? That won't happen."

"Right." you scoff dismissively. "And you know that, how?"

I shrug. You know it's obvious. "Because I'm here now, having to say it. And yeah, I'm with her... but it's you that matters isn't it? Otherwise, I could leave you to anyone and- **FUCK**... going round in circles aren't we?"

"We? When was I ever really part of the collective, Phil?"

I bite into my lip, training myself to ignore the tone of your voice. "It's all you and you know it. You're right... this, it's not normal. You make sense to me, even when... I don't know, you're sleeping around for the sake of it?"

You scowl defensively, folding your arms across your chest, the photos still held fiercely in your hand. "I thought _we_ were moving on?"

"Then credit yourself. If you wanted to do it, you could have done it. Don't punish yourself for my fuck-ups."

"What else can I do? You're still here... with her and I..."

I sigh heavily, cutting across your words as I search for some... nerve. "April, I want to ask you a question and... you need to be honest, alright? With yourself."

You roll your eyes, but I know you heard me and I know you'll comply despite yourself. Because your chest is still, you're holding back your next breath pending my words, pretending there's something oh-so-fascinating mounted on the wall.

But I can't allow reality in. It frightens me too much, sickens me even after what I saw this afternoon. So as I train myself to breathe steadily, I close my eyes and release the words, before I lose my nerve and my very last chance is gone.

"Do you still want what we were? Is that what all this is about?"

Your neck jerks, in protest almost, and you look broken as you stare back at me, mouth twisted in horror. "You asked me to love you. And I do. You can't ask me to stop as well."

To feel the bliss of those words if only I didn't feel so... sick and frightened. And believe me sweetheart, I hate myself for feeling this way because these are the very emotions that estranged me from everything we've built that felt so... made. It's taking everything I've got to fight it back, to think clearly. But, when did either of us ever do that? It wasn't clarity that made me think that Paul or Amy were ever a good idea. It was fear and desperation. And you... you're the only one I know that stands any chance of chasing them away for me.

"No, I know. So don't. Please don't."

I'm well aware I'm pathetic, pleading with you, but I'd sooner do or say anything than live in fear someone else will steal you away and you'll settle for a love so much less than the one I can't help but give you. No-one else is ever going to feel this way about you and yeah... I might frustrate you and, shit, I don't deserve you, but I've not been able to stop loving you. And ignoring it doesn't make it any less there.

I can read the pity in your eyes and it makes me feel sick.

Your arms drop and you look wistfully almost down on the photos. And, for a second, I think I imagined it, blinking furiously, But no, the corners of your lips are still poised in a smile. A sad one, but a smile nonetheless.

"We should just have never come back."

"I wish we hadn't most days." I confess in that same jaded whisper.

"Would it... would we have been any different?"

"What do you mean?" I question softly.

But that seems too much for you and you childishly hunch your shoulders. "I don't know... better somehow?"

I nod gently. "We'd be together."

There's an accusing edge to your tone as you straighten up against the chair abruptly, hugging your bent up knees to your chest. "And that's alright for you is it? I'd be enough? Because last time-"

I wince, shutting my eyes briefly to try and block out the agony of your words. "I was wrong, April alright? I thought I wanted something that was never there to be had. I made a mistake and I know I hurt you with it. But if you just stop fighting... then it will - it'll be alright."

You smile weakly and I try and ignore the humoured disbelief in your eyes. "I wish I could hear you tell Paul that. But I never will, will I, Phil? Because the second that man says a word to you, I've lost you all over again. It won't matter what I feel."

There's a sickening wrench in my gut. Because everything you say was true. But I was weak April, I really was, no matter what I protest. My desperation to mean something to him made me weak. But it was never supposed to cost me you. I love you. I need you to be mine, because the idea I could lose you to someone of less feeling, makes me feel more desperate than any other possibility. You made me see that today. I'm not letting you go. I'm not brave enough to see through a miserable life that refuses to go my way without you.

I move, now kneeling in front of you. "April, look at me..."

You laugh nervously, blanching your lip as you claw at it and obediently tilt your head up against the chair to look at me. I've never known anyone like you, April. So much pain and yet, somehow you look all the more beautiful for it. Your vulnerability makes you human and better, it made you mine. I can't help but reach out to touch you, but I'm certain you're going to lurch back and reprimand me in the strongest of terms. But you giggle again as my fingertips sweep down your cool, slippery cheek in an uncertain caress.

"...I swear to you, it's _all _that matters alright? Whatever we have to say, wherever we have to go, I just want you. I've tried living every other way and it isn't enough."

You splutter on a sob of disbelief, your shivering hand curling around mine to hold it in place. "What am I supposed to do?"

"Tell me you want to make it."

"I always did..."

"Then that's what we'll do. We'll go back to that place and... we can live out of a fucking picture book - it can be like it was."

But you sigh, releasing the sound from those perfectly pouted lips as you drop my hand. "Phil, be serious-"

"I **am** serious! This place has done nothing for us!"

"Us? _Us_? It's not even real! It's just arguments and false promises and- just look at the state of me, will you?"

"You're not a state-"

But you don't hear my words. You glare at me, sniffling a little through your tears. "I'm shaking and I'm cold and I just don't know what I'm supposed to think anymore. I don't even know if I still know **you**. I mean, what was this, a show of togetherness for your conscience?"

"No. _No._ It's admitting the truth. There's nothing to wait for anymore. There isn't a family and I haven't got a relationship. I'm running scared and you're the only one that knows it... you've been watching me the whole time, hating me for doing it, I know you have. And I don't want to anymore. I want what was right. I want **you**."

"For how long? Because I'm sick of hurting for you. I want what's mine again."

I bow my head for a second, summoning a little more courage. I look right at you, able to feel your warm breath, heavy with trepidation, dance across my face as I chew at my lip and offer you what's always been yours.

"Me. Us. We can make it the best, April, you know we can. You just have to want to." Your mesmerising eyes look huge and bright with fear and you make me feel sick with nerves just by looking at me. It's hard to breathe in that next moment, but I have to ask. "Do you want to?"

This... disbelieving breath leaves the corner of your mouth, but no words come. My insides cave in that second, defeated. But then, I can't help but feel everything you offer in your wordless reply. A whisper of a kiss pressed to needy lips, full of promise in all sincerity. Oh sweetheart, you never tasted sweeter. If only I knew some way to hold onto this moment forever, to never live another. Because this one, for all my fear, is too perfect. I pull you gently away from the chair and into my arms, kissing you deeper.

Lost to you, completely lost, nothing else is going to matter in the world. I have all I need now, in all selfishness. But I'll make you happy. I will. If only because it seems you believe I'll give anything for the chance. But it's nothing, April, it's giving up some piteous charade for everything that felt so damn perfect.

But your whole body tenses at the furious rapping on the door. Takes me several more seconds to realise anything might be wrong. But, at the calling of my name from the other side of it, I'm with you in the panic, the tight, sickened knot in my stomach.

"Phil? Babe, it's me!"

Mumbling to yourself in panic, you scramble to your feet, your face coloured for your anxiouness. You back defensively up against the wall, pulling desperately at your clothes and viciously at the ends of the shirt to tighten it as if you're completely exposed.

"Oh God... oh God, oh _shit!"_

"April, it's OK..." I soothe, standing to level with you, to reach out and touch you. But the idea seems to terrify you right now.

"**How** is it? Your fucking _girlfriend_ is out there and look at me! The whole thing's just going to happen all over again isn't it? None of it matters does it? It'll just be the same. You with her and me- nowhere."

"No! It's _us_ OK?"

But you shake your head desperately, whimpering a little even as you speak so feverishly, all faith apparantly lost to the sheer panic. "No, it's **not** ok because you're lying. You're not brave enough Phil, you're not. Not for me, not for yourself and certainly not for _us_."

"You reckon?" I quiz calmly, turning away from you as I stagger a few half-steps towards the door.

Would you have called it bravery when you took a stranger to your bed in my place? Was that bravery? Was keeping all those photos, torturing yourself with the seemingly lost memories, bravery? Because I know there's only one thing I can do to prove my worth and my sincerity to you and that is going take all the bravery I can muster. I reach towards the door to pull down the lock, glancing back at you, frozen against the wall. And I can almost see your heart breaking. I'm sure I felt mine begin to do the same today, but now... now you must know I never want it to happen to either of us. And it doesn't need to, as long as we can be together. And I'm going to make that happen, April.

"Watch me."

You'll see.

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**So this chapter seemed like a perfect way to end this fic, but I'm guessing you would all like to see the confrontation? Yes? No? Let me know. :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Once again, a big thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. I thought I would write a one shot to get me back into the swing of things, from having such a mad writers block. And here we are, chapter five. This is the last chapter of this mini fic. You are all so awesome :)**

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**AJ's POV.**

I can't move. I'm completely frozen. As Phil, oh god, you're on the verge of opening that door. And in my head, I'm screaming for you to stop, but the words never reach my mouth. My pulse increases as your hand presses down on the cool metal, gently pulling it towards you. Fuck! It really can't happen like this. It just can't. My heart is thudding against my ribcage and I feel sick. You're really going to do this. You were telling the truth.

You move to the side, to let Amy in, and the smile on her face instantly disappears. Her eyes meet mine. If looks could kill, I would have dropped down dead where I stood. She looks back at you but you don't really register her confused stare because you haven't been able to take your eyes off me from she entered the room. You close the door, casually walking towards me, stopping short. A gentle smile appears on your lips and somehow I know that we'll be ok. You turn to face Amy letting out a long sigh.

"Phil? What's going on? What's _she_ doing in your room, like _that_?" She spits out, her glare never leaving me. Her arms folded defiantly.

You rub your hand over your shaven head, grinding hard, back and forth as you try to find the words you have yet to say.

"Look, Amy. There's no other way that I can say this. But it needs to be said. Me and you...this thing we've had going on..it's..it's over."

I'm utterly dumbfounded and I can sense Amy is too, by the way her stance changes, her arms dropping to her sides and her eyes, that were boring holes into me are now doing the same to you. Oh Phil you silly bastard. My heart fills with pride as Amy's face fills with anger. You can feel the tension in this tiny hotel room, and then cut it with a knife.

"Wha- what do you mean it's over?" She rushes forward towards you, grabbing for your hands but you won't have it and you step back, as if she would burn you with her touch.

"It means exactly what I just said, I can't go on fooling myself, fooling you, fooling everybody. I'm not happy Amy."

She backs up at your words, taking deep breaths. I try to push up further against the wall, trying to blend into it. Amy looks shaken, as she combs her fingers through her long hair. Contemplating what to do next I imagine. But before I am aware of what's happening, she lunges towards me. You step quickly in front, protecting me as Amy's arms reach round either side of your body, trying to claw at me. But you're trying to keep her at a distance.

"You fucking bitch! You just couldn't leave him alone could you?" Her eyes are wide. She's seething.

"Amy! Calm the fuck down. This isn't April's fault, it's mine. Blame me, just blame me." You're still trying to stop her getting to me but she's putting up one hell of a fight. She slaps your hands away, not satisfied with that, she then begins to slap at your face and head. You don't flinch, would you rather her take her anger out on you than me? I know you think you deserve this, but I'm not sure how long I can just sit back and watch her take shot after shot at you. This isn't right. It's not.

" You bastard! How long? How long have you been fucking _her_ behind my back? Tell me god dammit!"

"Just once. It happened just once." You're face is now red, hints of scratches forming around your left eye.

"I don't believe you!" She has every right not to but she needs to hear the truth and there is no fucking way I'm letting her think that I could lower myself that much. I'm not the other woman. She is.

"It's the truth whether you believe it or not," I manage, coming out louder than I anticipated.

"Why couldn't you just stay away huh? He was doing fine, _we_ were doing fine. Suddenly you pop up and it's over? I'm not going to let you just steal him from me. He's mine."

"I'm not yours. I- I never was. I'm so sorry. My heart, has only ever truly belonged to one person" You turn your head to look at me. Reaching your hand out signalling for me to take it. I step forward without any hesitation. I can feel the tears start to well in my eyes as I grasp your hand into mine. Giving it a reassuring squeeze, before we both turn back to face Amy. This was how it was supposed to be. Just me and you against the world. Fuck everyone else

"Oh how touching, pass me the puke bucket." Amy's demeanour vastly changes. The distraught girlfriend's gone. Replaced. One vengeful ex girlfriend coming right up. And I should know because no less than 24 hours ago I was feeling the same way.

She rests her left hand on her hip, the right hand reaching her mouth as she drums her fingers against her bottom lip. Pensive. I can see her formulating some type of plan in her head. I don't like this one bit. I have a feeling I know what's coming next, and it's going to be big. This is the finale. The big test. This is what it all boils down to.

"Hmmm, I wonder what Paul's going to make of this little rendezvous? I'm sure he won't be too thrilled to learn, that all his hard work and sound advice was thrown away in a quickie when this little slut opened her legs for you!"

I feel you tense, and I can sense you're doing everything you can not to let your anger get the best of you. I pull at your hand and you glance down at me. Your eyes soften as I wordlessly let you know, that what she's saying isn't having the same effect on me.

You are reluctant to let go of my hand but you know that I need to do this too. I need to have my say, my last word, my closure from this horrible nightmare, I'm finally waking up from, beside you. So I step away, and Phil I already miss the closeness. That right there is why you scare me so much. The power you have over me, is completely mind blowing.

I step up, and look her dead in the eye. I'm not pulling any punches this time round.

"You thought you had it all figured out. You and Paul. You didn't give a shit about Phil until he made it to the top. You thought you could ride on his coattails. You and that fat, greasy creep, poisoning him. Feeding him lies, just to get what _you_ wanted. What were you going to do Amy, when it was time for Phil to step down? No title equals no benefits. Would you still "love" him then? What about Paul? Would Phil still be considered a son to him, when all the fame and all the glory dwindled away? When WWE superstar CM Punk becomes just Phil Brooks again?"

You scoff at me, rolling your eyes and I swear, it's taken all of my willpower not to spear you into that wall and smash your face in. The words I've been thinking for months, now out in the air for everyone to hear. And it feels so fucking good. I know your game Amy and now so does Phil.

I step up onto my tippy toes, I grab her arm hard, squeezing it as I reach in to whisper, "Don't ever underestimate me Amy. Ever. Lets's get one thing perfectly clear. _You_ were the other woman. He loves me, not you. And if you ever try and come between us again. It will be the last thing you do. Do we understand each other?"

Amy looks back between you and I a few times before she shrugs me off, " You know what, fuck this. You can have him sweetheart!"

She turns on her heel and makes her way to the door. Leaving without looking back. I feel that I can breathe properly now from the time she entered the room. I look up to the ceiling, blinking away tears that are threatening to fall. I think they're happy tears but christ, I'm relieved and I know you are too, as you appear close behind me. Moving the my hair away from my shoulder. You place a gentle kiss on the curve of my neck and I can feel those butterflies in my tummy. Your lips travel up to my ear, leaving a trail of kisses.

"_Now_ do you believe me?" Your breathless whisper, makes me shudder in acceptance. The things you make me feel, the energy that I get from you, it makes my hair stand on end, my heart race, it fills me with the upmost joy and I never thought I would ever feel that way again.

I turn and face you, resting my palms on your chest as you cup my flushed face in your gentle hands, your thumbs simultaneously wiping away my tears on each cheek.

"I believe _you_. I believe _in_ you. I believe in _us_. I _always_ have."

Your breath hitches in your throat and you smile that beautiful smile of yours as you lean in and kiss me softly.

"I love you April, I love you so much." I can hear your voice break a little and I rub my palms up and down your chest, calming you.

"I love you too. It's us against the world right?"

"And fuck everyone else!" I can't help but giggle at your tone as I press my nose into you're t-shirt, taking in a deep breath, inhaling your scent.

"Phil?"

"Yes?" You kiss the top of my head, waiting for me to speak.

I lean back out and look into your bright eyes full of love, I know is only for me.

"Can we make it official now?"

Your grin like the Cheshire cat, scooping me up into your willing arms and I yelp in surprise. Wrapping my legs around your waist, I place my hands on top of those broad shoulders, massaging them a little. Noticing the playful look in your eyes.

"Yes ma'am!"

* * *

Thankfully, I'm obviously not the only one that feels the urgency of this. You catch your hand around my jaw and force your mouth hard against mine, the tip of your tongue darting out of your mouth and swiping at my bottom lip, urging me to part my lips which I do so readily, pulling you down on top of me, the pressure feels amazing.

And Phil, while you dominate my mouth, I learnt long ago how to play you, hard at your own game. It's what makes us, us. I suck your bottom lip at different paces, not afraid to bite into the soft cushion of it. You moan almost involuntarily into my mouth, which makes me shiver with excitement.

I can't help but let my hands go everywhere, drifting across the very well defined muscle of your back, up into the nape of your warm neck, your pulse quickening simply beneath my touch. And still you never surrender, mouth working against mine relentlessly. But as intoxicating as it is, suddenly it's not enough. I want to feel your skin against mine.

You half lift me away from the soft mattress, the cool sheets melting deliciously into my burning skin as my clothes fall away from my form. I feel you tug roughly at them until they are gone, slowly lowering me back down across the thick, rumpled, fleecy material.

So that leaves me, just in my underwear. I'm warm enough, even if I do feel a little cheated. Still, I needn't rock the boat, these are hands skilled enough to do whatever they must while all at once enjoying the moment.

But as I unbutton the band of your jeans easily, your hand catches firmly around mine, rendering me immobile. For half a breath, I panic you are about to wrench me away and have me feel a bigger fool than ever. But the other half of that same breath is stolen as your mouth crashes to mine again.

"Are you sure?" you push breathily. And oh God, just the sound of your voice, so affected by desire, excites me more than I ever thought was possible. I can't even speak, just nod feverishly, trying to catch the breath that was long ago gone.

Slowly, you relax your grip on my hand and instead breathe an almost soundless "OK..." into my mouth as you kiss me again. The relief rolls out as a husky vibration from my throat, especially when your hand skims beneath the material of my underwear, across the warm dampness of my thigh.

Biting back a moan that somehow escapes me sharply anyway, I can't help but shift to part my legs beneath the insistence of your touch.

The softest murmur of a laugh leaves you.

"Really sure?"

Why do you have to tease so much? Sexy as it is, Phil you practically have me crying in frustration here. And you are not getting the better of me... at least not until I say you can have it.

"_Yes_!" I insisted, half as a pleasured moan that shudders through me as your fingertips, deliciously rough, brush against my sensitive spot. "Just... touch me... _please_..."

But the last word is barely born before you thrust two and then three fingers easily into my heat. It's like being struck by lightning, I swear to God, and I'm just here, rigid against the velvety sheets, mewing with pleasure, my every muscle sent into some incredible spasm as you caress my sensitive spot with the pad of your thumb all at once.

Most people would take the time to enjoy the bliss of the first climax. But I'm impatient now, already seeking out a bigger, harder thrill. And feeling what is pressed tellingly into the tightened muscles of my stomach, I'm pretty assured I've found one.

I keep tugging at your jeans, managing to bend my knee a little to force you up so the material can be eased down as far as is necessary. I want this so badly, I'm shaking, and that isn't just the after-effect of the hardest orgasm I've been allowed to enjoy in a long time.

Even the shock of pain as you enter me is pleasurable. And yet, I'm crying out almost as soon as you settle on a rhythm and I'm not going to argue with you. You know what you're doing. Frenzied and yet controlled perfectly. By you at least. I think I'm a little weak already, using up all my might to buck my hips up against you and meet every thrust with the same kind of ferocity, determined to be as good to you as you are to me.

Every time you curse, so lost to the intensity of what you can feel, I swear, it's almost dreamy, it has me moving faster against you. I want to hear you reach the peak, I want to feel it happen and know it was all down to me. We're rocking frantically against one another, my mouth dry from all my cries of encouragement, of ecstasy. I want to give you something back and yet, I'm rigid and feverish with the anticipation of my orgasm, knowing, oh God, knowing it'll be so much better than before. And I too am a selfish lover, knowing no other way to relay how impossibly perfect everything you have evoked inside me feels besides letting my shapely nails sink through the thin material of your t-shirt into your shoulders as I grip at you fiercely.

My orgasm rips through me in that next moment like liquid fire and I buck at an impossible speed against you for the last few eager thrusts, still in awe at the way you fill me. And as restrained as you try to be about it, I bet you and I are the only two people that will be heard for miles. Yeah, that's right, me and you, fucking frantically on your bed. And why the Hell not? You've taken care of me in every way tonight now. And believe me, I'm very grateful, in awe of the way lust and love and disbelief make those kind warm, sexy eyes so glassy as you give in, finally letting go and giving me another thrill in the process.

I rock against you again, giving you all the encouragement you need to let go and let me have all you have to offer.

Your breathing starts to get tellingly ragged and shallow, and my God, you're sexier than ever. I try and lie out straight, reaching up to drive your neglected lips back against mine in a fury, gasping breathlessly into your sweet, sweet mouth;

"That's it... come for me... oh _fuck..._"

You explode inside me and I groan as I feel it. Still moving your hips slowly until your orgasm subsides. It's just us now. No more Amy and we'll deal with Paul when we have to. Together. Making love like this, feels like we were never apart, but hell we have a whole lot of making up to do and I for one will enjoy every second of it.

You're still shaking from your release, as I bring my hand to the back of your neck and move you towards my lips.

One, two, three gentle pecks.

You lean your head against mine, the tips of my nose touching yours, rubbing softly.

"Just us against the world baby." You whisper against my lips.

"And fuck everyone else!"


End file.
